Transit City cancellation to cost $65M

Cancelling Transit City in favour of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's subway-focused plan will cost $65 million, TTC general manager Gary Webster says.

The Toronto Transit Commission's chief used the figurewhich is $16 million more than the previous number cited during the city's budget committee meeting on Tuesday.

'The mayor's priority is to spend $65 million on a handshake with no input from any staff or any of the other councillors.' Coun. Adam Vaughan

Bruce McCuaig, CEO of the regional transportation agency Metrolinx, said in Marchthecity would be liable for about $49 million inpenalties, but saidthat number was likely to rise.

The provinceannounced earlier this year that the province would support an Eglinton light rail line underground,effectively killing former mayor David Miller's Transit City plan.

When he took office last December, Ford said he would scrap Transit City because it would run at street-level and obstruct traffic.

Coun. Adam Vaughan, a frequent Ford critic, said he didn't understand the mayor's thinking, especially given the 2012 spending cuts that council has been debating.

"We turn around to the children and say, 'Sorry, you're not going to get rec programs, you're not going to get a breakfast program, the library won't be open necessarily when you go to use it,' " he said. "And yet themayor's priority is to spend $65 million on a handshake with no input from any staff or any of the other councillors. $65 million? Just to cancel stuff?"

Council Doug Ford, the mayor's brother, countered that Torontonians want subways and the cancellation fees are worth the cost.

One change inthe mayor's planreplaces a $950-million light rail extension on Sheppard that would have been built eastward from Don Mills station with a subway extension pegged at $4.2 billion.